LONG BEACH – Financial messes, both national and personal, dominated a 37th Congressional District candidates’ forum Thursday at Long Beach City College.

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, and three write-in challengers Lee Davis, Peter Mathews and June Pouesi who are seeking to unseat her Nov. 4, sparred over the Wall Street crisis, the Congressional bailout and the incumbent’s well-publicized home foreclosure.

“Most of the people who voted for the bailout took money from Wall Street,” said Mathews, who added that he does not accept corporate donations.

Mathews, who lost to Richardson in the Democratic primary and is running a write-in campaign, called for a reversion to the era of the government-backed banks of the 1930s that loaned businesses money.

Richardson said the other candidates did not appear to have as deep of an understanding of how the bailout plan worked.

“The difference between someone who is not even on the ballot, and a person who is your member of Congress, is someone who can give you accurate information,” Richardson said.

The congresswoman, who serves most of Long Beach, Signal Hill, Carson and Compton, said that the rescue package carries multiple conditions, requires mandatory reviews of participating firms and hardly amounted to a “blank check” for Wall Street.

Pouesi, a Carson Republican who has advocated for free markets, strongly criticized Washington for rescuing the banks.

“If I had my way, we’d have the whole lot in Congress out and start anew,” she said.

Pouesi said voters should elect representatives with strong values who would not succumb to the pressure of special interests.

“What you need are morals, people with servants’ hearts who will do the right thing,” she said, adding that the nation was flirting with socialism.

Experience – namely what kind makes one more prepared for Congress – was also a major topic.

With experience on the Long Beach City Council, the state Assembly and at Xerox Corp., and an MBA from USC, Richardson pointed out that she was the only candidate with a substantial political and corporate background.

“This is not a job for the weary, and it’s not a job to test out,” Richardson said.

Mathews, a Cypress College professor, quickly pointed out that President Bush also has an MBA, from Harvard.

“This is not just about experience, this is about judgment,” he said.

Pouesi, who directs a Samoan affairs council, all but called previous time in office a liability.

“There are a whole lot of people in Congress with a lot of experience,” she said. “Where did they take us? What did we get?”

Davis, an author and Web site publisher, took aim at Richardson for supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary when Sen. Barack Obama won the 37th Congressional District.

“Our congresswoman was a Hillary delegate, a Hillary delegate,” Davis said. “I know this because I went to the DNC.”

Davis also said that Richardson did not vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Though she did not participate in a roll-call vote at the DNC, Richardson did in fact vote for Obama. She endorsed him in June and later campaigned on his behalf.

The forum became increasingly personal when candidates were asked by one of 57 people in a standing-room only classroom on LBCC’s Liberal Arts Campus whether any of them had struggled financially.

Each candidate said they had.

Davis talked about how she lost her home in foreclosure.

Richardson said she cleaned toilets and performed other custodial duties to be able to afford tuition and books as an undergraduate at UCLA and spent much of her working life holding two jobs.

Pouesi said when she first married her husband they lived in a car in San Bernardino and bathed in park bathrooms until she found work as a teacher.

Mathews recounted his story as a child of immigrants from India.

Experience a hot topic Event gets personal Foreclosure discussed

Though baited by Davis and Mathews, Richardson did not go into depth about the foreclosure of her Sacramento home, which she lost earlier this year and then apparently won back in a settlement.

“I will just summarize,” she said. “My personal situation is in a very positive place at this point.”

Richardson said she would hold a press conference after the election to tell her side of the story.

Mathews waved what he called documentation from the Internet showing that Richardson may not actually have her Sacramento house back.

After the forum, Richardson said the document, a computer printout that showed Red Rock Mortgage Inc. as the home’s owner, was inaccurate.

The man who bought the house in foreclosure has told the Daily Breeze, a sister newspaper of the Press-Telegram, that he accepted a settlement to return the house.

Davis suggested that Richardson received special treatment to get her home back.

“Right now all of America is fighting foreclosure, but we have a member of Congress who put down nothing on her house and got it back,” she said. “I put down $50,000, and I ain’t got squat.”

Mathews said Richardson put herself in a vulnerable position.

“She could fall prey to lobbyists,” he said.

The congresswoman accused Mathews and Davis of breaking the rules of the forum, which was to be a conversation about national issues, not a debate involving personal attacks.

Pouesi, keeping with a campaign pledge, did not criticize her opponents.

A fifth candidate, independent Nick Dibs, said he had a scheduling conflict and did not attend the event moderated by Dan Komin of the Political Science Students Association.